On Seeing This, The People Said,
That The Devil, Being Unable To Hurt His Soul, Had Thus Disfigured His
Body.
The governor of Yembo took great care that the exact amount of the
mortality in the town should not
Be known; but the solemn exclamations
of "La illaha ill' Allah," which indicate a Moslim funeral, struck the
ear from every side and quarter of the town, and I counted myself forty-
two in one day. To the poor the plague becomes a real feast; every
family that can afford it, kills a sheep on the death of any of its
members, and the day after, the men and women of the whole neighbourhood
are entertained at the house. The women enter the apartments, embrace
and console all the females of the family, and expose themselves every
moment to infection. It is to this custom, more than any other cause,
that the rapid dissemination of the plague in Mohammedan towns must be
ascribed; for when the disease once breaks out in a family, it never
fails of being transmitted to the whole neighbourhood.
It is a common belief among Europeans, and even eastern Christians, that
the Mohammedan religion forbids any precautionary measures against the
plague; but this is erroneous. That religion forbids its followers from
avoiding the disease if it has once entered a town or country; but it
warns them at the same time, not to enter any place where the plague
rages: and it accordingly forbids individuals to shut themselves up in a
house, and to cut off all communication with the rest of the infected
town, because this is the same as flying from the plague; but it favours
measures of quarantine, to prevent the importation of the disease, or
its communication to strangers upon their arrival.
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